Then Nimble went away from the clearing, and once more resolved to seek
his fortune in the woods. He knew there were plenty butter-nuts, acorns,
hickory-nuts, and beech-nuts, to be found, besides many sorts of berries;
and he very diligently set to work to lay up stores against the coming
winter.

As it was now getting cold at night, Nimble-foot thought it would be wise
to make himself a warm house; so he found out a tall hemlock-pine that was
very thick and bushy at the top; there was a forked branch in the tree,
with a hollow just fit for his nest. He carried twigs of birch and beech,
and over these he laid dry green moss, which he collected on the north
side of the cedar-trees, and some long grey moss that he found on the
swamp maples, and then he stripped the silky threads from the milk-weeds,
and the bark of the cedar and birch-trees. These he gnawed fine, and soon
made a soft bed; he wove and twisted the sticks, and roots, and mosses
together, till the walls of his house were quite thick, and he made a sort
of thatch over the top with dry leaves and long moss, with a round hole to
creep in and out of.

Making this warm house took him many days' labour; but many strokes will
fell great oaks, so at last Nimble-foot's work came to an end, and he had
the comfort of a charming house to shelter him from the cold season. He
laid up a good store of nuts, acorns, and roots: some he put in a hollow
branch of the hemlock-tree close to his nest; some he hid in a stump, and
another store he laid under the roots of a mossy cedar. When all this was
done, he began to feet very lonely, and often wished no doubt that he had
had his sisters Silvy and Velvet-paw with him, to share his nice warm
house; but of Silvy he knew nothing, and poor Velvet-paw was dead.